Reblogged from Smorgasbord:

Welcome to the series  Posts from Your Archives, where bloggers put their trust in me. In this series, I dive into a blogger’s archives and select four posts to share here to my audience.

If you would like to know how it works here is the original post: https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2019/04/28/smorgasbord-posts-from-your-archives-newseries-pot-luck-and-do-you-trust-me/

This is the third post from the archives of children’s author Annabelle Franklin who lives in a lovely part of South Wales. She blogs from the Literate Lurcher..or should I say Millie and Pearl do….Millie has sadly passed away now but lives on in the hearts and minds of her pack. In this post Annabelle pays tribute to the dogs who accompany soldiers into war and offer so much more than essential companionship.

 Mercy Dogs 2014 by Annabelle Franklin

Human wars are crazy affairs, with people getting together in great packs and tearing each other apart. We didn’t know until recently that animals have to take part in this lunacy, with no choice in the matter.

Back in ancient times, 700 dog years ago, there was a Great War with packs of humans from all over the planet all fighting each other. Like I said, a crazy business. Imagine that happening in the dog world!

In the Great War, dogs were used for all sorts of tasks on the battlefield. ‘Mercy’ dogs carried saddlebags full of medical supplies to wounded soldiers. If a soldier was dying, a Mercy dog would often sit with him to the end, giving comfort and easing his journey to the next world. We dogs are good at that.

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